Why You Keep Losing Offers, and What to Change

You write an offer. You lose. You write a second one. You lose that one too.

By the third time everybody lands on the same answer. We have to go higher.

Sometimes that is right. Often it is not, and going higher will not fix it.

I call the listing agent after every offer we lose and I ask why we did not get it. Not to argue. To find out. After enough of those calls you start to see the same four answers.

An agent sitting with five offers is not only looking at numbers. They are trying to work out which one of these is actually going to close.

If your agent never called them, never asked what the seller needs, and just emailed a package at the deadline, you are paper. Somebody else in that pile is a phone call and a name.

That is not unfair. That is a seller protecting themselves. A deal that dies in week three costs them a month and usually money, because the house goes back on the market and everybody wonders what was wrong with it.

The call takes two minutes. What does the seller need. Are there dates that matter. Is there anything about this house we should know before we write.

Boring, and it is one of the most common reasons a good offer loses. Also the cheapest thing on this list to fix.

People assume this call is some kind of negotiation. It is not. It is four questions and it is friendly.

What matters most to your seller, the price or the timing? Is there a date they are working around? Has this house been in contract before, and if it fell out, why? Is there anything in the disclosures you wish buyers would actually read?

That last question is the useful one. The disclosures are where buyers get scared, and they usually get scared by a word rather than by the actual problem.

Two offers at the same price are not the same offer.

Close date. Deposit. Rent back, if the seller needs time to move out. Which contingencies you keep and for how long. Whether your loan is fully approved or just pre-qualified.

Sellers take less money for cleaner terms all the time. Usually they are right to.

Take the close date. To you it is a line on a form. To a seller who has already bought their next house, it can be the difference between one mortgage payment and two. That is worth real money to them, and it costs you nothing except moving your own plans around.

Or the deposit. A bigger deposit does not go anywhere. It is your money, applied to the price you pay. What it does is tell the seller you are not going to walk over something small, because now walking would cost you.

Or the contingencies. Every one you keep is protection for you and risk for them. You do not have to remove them, and in this market I would not tell you to. But you should know which ones you actually need and which ones you are keeping out of habit.

So find out what this seller needs before you write anything. Sometimes it is speed. Sometimes it is one specific date, because of a school year or a house they are buying. Sometimes it is certainty, because their last deal already fell apart on them.

And whatever you want from them, put it in the offer. Not later.

Some homes are priced low on purpose, to bring a crowd in and let them bid it up. That is a real strategy and it works.

The trouble starts when you see that number and think it is what the house is worth. You plan around it. Then you fight for a house that was never selling anywhere near it, lose, and decide this market is impossible.

The market is not impossible. That price was a starting gun.

Figure out which one you are looking at before you get attached. I wrote about how to tell in the list price is a strategy.

Both happen.

Too slow is usually this. You saw the house Saturday, offers were due Tuesday, and nobody opened the disclosures. In this market the disclosure package and the inspection reports are almost always out before offers are due. A buyer who read them is deciding. A buyer who did not is guessing.

Too fast is writing a big offer on the second house you saw, because losing the first one hurt.

That is not a decision. That is a reaction, and it is how people overpay for a house they did not even want that much.

This is normal. Almost everybody does it once.

Read the disclosures on any house you are serious about, before the offer date. If you cannot read one yet, that is my job. I will tell you which items are normal and which ones I don't love, in plain language, in English or Russian.

Have your agent call the listing agent. Every time.

Ask your lender if they can fully approve your loan instead of pre-qualifying you. It costs you paperwork and nothing else.

And pick your number before the deadline, not during it. That is what the five questions I go through before any offer are for.

The last one is the one that matters. What price would you still feel fine about, even if somebody else went a little higher?

Answer that honestly and you have a number you will not regret. Win or lose.

You are allowed to lose a house.

Losing at a number you picked on purpose is not failing. That is the thing working the way it should.

Failing is winning at a number you picked in a panic on a Tuesday night.

I have told buyers a house was wrong for them when it cost me the deal. I will do it again.

Lost a few and want a straight answer on why? Get in touch and bring the addresses. We can usually find the pattern in one conversation.

More on how I work with buyers and buying your first home here.